


i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

by maplemood



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Childhood, Dysfunctional Family, Force Ghosts, Gen, Kylo Ren Redemption, Or hints of it anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 06:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13699122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maplemood/pseuds/maplemood
Summary: When Ben Solo is eight years old, his uncle takes him to the beach to skip rocks.





	i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

_here is the deepest secret nobody knows_

_(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud_

_and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows_

_higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)_

_and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart_

 

_i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)_

_—_ e.e cummings, **[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]**

 

On that morning (a morning long to come and far away) he will face the grim hulk of his reflection and say, softly, experimentally, “Ben.”

Almost a question.

_Ben._

_The past is not dead._

_You are Ben Solo again._

Yet it will never rest easy on his shoulders, the name of the boy who trailed after his mother through the Senate, who raced with his father through the stars, who clambered between them late at night, sweat-soaked, shivering with whispered voices and evil dreams. Bits of those dreams he still remembers, the words he never dared speak aloud.

_(I saw you rot.)_

_Ben._ His mother’s worn fingers stroking his back.

His father’s stubble rasping against his ear. _Ah, kid._

_Ben._

Never again.

+

When Ben Solo is eight years old, his uncle takes him to the beach to skip rocks. It’s only a beach by a lake, not an ocean, but once Mother and Father started screaming the whole villa felt too small for anybody but the two of them. Ben scrambled to follow when Uncle Luke jerked his head in the direction of the back door, even though his uncle is quiet and tired-looking and not all that used to Ben; definitely no more than Ben is used to him.

He’s been gone four years, since Ben was a baby. Searching for the lost scrolls of the Jedi.

“Next time I want to come with you.”

“No you don’t.” Luke adjusts the stance of Ben’s arm. His fingers are calloused like Father’s and gentle like Ben thought only Father’s could be. “It’s just cold, boring flights through hyperspace. Okay. Try again.”

Ben stretches his fingers, making sure not to clench his fist this time, and focuses. By the water’s edge, the stone trembles.

“Go!” Ben whispers. “ _Go_.”

“Easy,” his uncle murmurs.

The surge that bursts through him isn’t huge, as surges go. It’s still enough to knock Ben flat on his backside as the rock whistles through the air, skips once, and sinks, breaking the lake’s silky surface into a million ripples.

“I did that,” he whispers. He’s never—never—been able to control it before. Always the Force has been inside him, pulling, racing, howling. He does what it wants, not the other way around. Ben twists his head to meet Uncle Luke’s lined smile.

“I did that!”

“You know, kid, I think you’re going to have a killer right hook,” he says, and right then Ben decides it doesn’t matter if his uncle looks older than he really is, all gray and stern like the kind of guy who yells at kids to get their speeders off his lawn.

“Show me more,” he begs. “Please?”

“If I show you any more today your mom’s going to kill me.” His uncle stretches out his hand. When Ben takes it he pulls him up, brushes the crust of sandy gravel off his pants.

“What about tomorrow?” He needs to know more. If he can stop the voices, and then the dreams…

“Tomorrow I’m leaving.” Before Ben’s face can fall Luke’s settled his good hand on his shoulder and squeezed, gently. “But one day, when you’re ready, I’ll teach you everything you need to know. Do we have a deal?”

Words don’t mean anything. He’s told himself so until he almost believes it. “Do we?”

His uncle’s face is leathery yet very soft. “I promise, Ben.”

The voices come back that night, louder than they ever have before. Ben crawls onto the couch with Father, and Father holds him tight.

+

Crait’s salt flats echo with voices. For the first time in years, Snoke’s is not among them; for the first time in years, Luke’s is.

He worked so hard to shut it out. As, he’s sure, Luke did with his, as Father could never do, though Father was never strong in the Force, let alone a good judge of character, by the end.

_Ah, kid._

One by one, they all let themselves be blinded.

 _I failed you, Ben,_ his uncle whispers, beyond death, beyond touch. A spirit vanished into storms of salt.

_Ben._

He gathers them up. The name, the voices of his uncle and father, all the men of their dying, ruined line; everything that goes with them, their smiles, their scowls, the tug of their work-roughened fingers through his hair. Their fragility and their stupidity. His father’s face, lit red. His uncle’s face, lit blue. He holds them, carries them, and swears one day he will let go.

_Ben._

He holds them. They burn his eyes like salt.


End file.
